


#7 He Touches Your Lower Back

by mulderitsclaire



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, MSR, Mulder and Scully - Freeform, Sculder, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 02:43:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19454680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mulderitsclaire/pseuds/mulderitsclaire
Summary: Scully contemplates the meaning of love and then gets caught red-handed by Mulder...DT: wtfmulder because your work is AMAZING. Imma huge fan.





	1. "What is Love, Baby Don't Hurt Me"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wtfmulder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfmulder/gifts).



> Article referenced is:
> 
> ‘When a Guy Touches You: The Different Body Parts & What They Mean”  
> https://www.lovepanky.com/women/understanding-men/when-a-guy-touches-you

Why do two people fall in love with each other? We could chalk it up to science; chemistry; chemicals, we are animals after all, we crave a mate. We have a deep ache in our womb to procreate, to be filled by another; literally and figuratively. Yet we seek companionship through conversation, deliberation, personal fascination, and a million other intangible ideas that our psyche’s consist of; that they crave and in return must be fed, then released to another, and the cycle continued. 

Therefore, we live for symbiosis, a less severe counterpart of codependency. Humans need contact, physical contact; touch. We need affection through embrace and promises and sexual satisfaction. As we are animals after all. Human beings are finicky creatures of habit, we crave, we devour, and we crave again. 

Leaving nearly no space for the realization that maybe what we really need, after all, is routine. We need structure, order, we crave cycles, we yearn for familiarity. So is that what love is, the repeated act of not being lonely, of not floating around like a dandelion in the wind? It could be, it just could be. But. It. Isn’t. Love is irrational, chaotic, passionate, terrifying, mystifying, satisfying. 

Love was fabricated in the corners of the universe, in the hands of a creator. At the mercy of humans expense, so that we could feel something so gratifying that when we feel it, we believe. And when we believe, we act. And when we act, we fulfil. A creator’s desires are met through the observance of its creation. 

I’ve deliberated over this for nearly a decade, on long car rides in cheap rental cars, in crummy motel room with crusty bathtubs, staring down the barrel of a gun full of bullets, and most frequently with a hand to the small of my back. 

Why the hell is that hand there? How does it always end up there? Sometimes it startles me, and then I feel the warmth of his skin seeping into mine, and I breathe deeper than I ever have, I breathe wholly. I remember the first time it happened, yeah, who’s got a photographic memory now? It was early on, it seemed to stem from possessiveness. But I’m not the one with an Oxford diploma in the art of psychology. 

What do I know? Sure, I can cut you open and sew you back up like nothing happened, but I can’t tell you why I lay awake at night, my stomach churning, tickling, ruining my big girl panties for the thousandth night in a row because my mind wanders. It wanders into the unknown. It fills up with the proposition that maybe that hand is there for a reason. Why does he always touch me there?  
And then here I am, a full hour early to work, fully dressed in my big girl power suit, sipping black coffee, firing up the search engine, typing in; what does it mean when a man touches your back? I’ve worked with him for five years, why am I googling it only now? What has possessed me to do so? Well I’ve decided to not give myself the pleasure to answer that syrupy question. 

Oh, it’s just oozing, festering, growing in size day by day like a giant cyst, similar to the one I cut off of a middle aged man’s my first day of residency. Suddenly I’m repeating lyrics through my head from a popular song that used to play on the radio the year I started working with one Fox William Mulder, “what is love? baby don’t hurt me.”

I’m humming the tune, and uprooting the cuticles of my nails as I drag the cursor down to the first result. I’m skimming the article of male body language, and I find the one I’m looking for, the one that’s currently jumping off the diving board of my stomach and swimming around like a beached fish, floppy and planitive. 

#7 He touches your lower back. This is probably what you want to actually know. When a guy touches your lower back it shows that they’re attracted to you. The lower back is a sensitive part of the body, so you’ll feel their touch more intensely. Oh, and pay attention to the duration of their touch. If they touch your lower back for a longer period of time, it shows their level of attraction. [Read:18 physical aspects of a girl that drive men crazy]

I blink several times, choke on my coffee, and then get up to pace around in circles. What? What? What? What does this mean? 

Yesterday he had his hand on my lower back down the entire hallway, and then when we were walking into the motel lobby, and then getting onto the elevator the day before, and leaving Skinner’s office that morning. And then there’s suddenly not a day that I can positively say that his hand did not come into contact with my back, and suddenly my heart is thumping in my ears and I can’t think straight, so I sit back down in my chair, to scan the rest of the article. 

#3 He touches your face. A person’s face is what basically makes us attracted to them. Crazy, right? It’s not the six-pack abs or tight ass, it’s the face. Now, if he’s touching your face, this probably means you’re already comfortable with him. We don’t let just anyone touch our face.  
The face has a pair of luscious lips on them which is always associated as being sensual and intimate. So, if he touches your face, or strokes your cheeks, he wants to be sexually close with you. [Read: The not-so-obvious things that makes a man attracted to a woman]

Oh, holy crap, how many times has he tucked my hair behind my ear… or the time he brushed my cheek so softly while I was filtering in and out of sleep on a stakeout for a telephone that I thought about that smile he gave me for weeks afterwards. 

Then there was the fact that I’d held his hand the very same week, purposefully, intently. Do I even know myself? I gulp down some more coffee, ahh, hot and burning and soothing. 

So I sit back and close my eyes, and the next thing I know there’s someone breathing on my ear, and speaking aloud, “When a guy touches your lower back it shows that they’re attracted to you. The lower back is a sensitive part of the body, so you’ll feel their touch more intensely. Oh, and pay attention to the duration of their touch. If they touch your lower back for a longer period of time, it shows their level of attraction…”. 

It’s him, he’s reading the article aloud, and I freeze, my eyelids are closed, and my heart is now racing, as he says, “hm, interesting…”. Then he walks away and sits in his own chair, and I have no idea if he knows that I’m awake yet, so I think, maybe, just maybe, we can pretend that that very thing, did not just happen. 

I can feel his eyes on me. I can hear the clicking on his keyboard, but I know that he’s looking at me, so I stick my tongue out to lick off the drool that has gathered in the corner of my mouth. Then I sit up and stretch, “Ahh, oh, hey, Mulder. I must’ve dozed off. Came in early to… do some…,” I wave my hands around to motion towards all of the important things that I didn’t do, “stuff.”  
I have yet to make eye contact with him, I looked over his head. So I suck it up, and look at him, and he has a dopey smile on his face, one he’s trying to bite back, “Oh, no problem,” he clears his throat, and I feel my heart clenching like it might explode all over his messy desk. I flash him a toothless smile, and stand up to refill my coffee, and I feel his eyes on me as I walk over to the table. 

Then he clears his throat again, “So learn anything new today, Scully?”, and my eyes grow wide, and my breathing is quicker, my pulse is pounding in my ears again. But I collect myself and turn around, “What do mean, Mulder?”, his eyebrows are raised, and he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. 

Leaning against the counter, I raise my brow back because he can’t beat me at my own game, but, oh, maybe he can after all. Mulder stands now and walks up to me, smiling and picks up his mug. 

The one that says "property of 'US of UFOs',” and I slide over so he can pour himself a cup. He transfers it slowly from the pot into his mug. I walk away to find my chair, and as I'm turning around I feel his hand creep across my waist, onto my back, and he tickles me there. Right there. In the spot. Yes, the small of my back. My lower back. 

And I squirm and spit coffee on myself, turn around to catch him smiling, oh, smiling so big, but his cheeks are flushed. Not so cocky after all are we, big boy? He licks his lips, and then walks back to his desk, grabs me a tissue and I take it from him nearly tearing it from his hand, and wipe the coffee off my, fortunately dark blue, blouse while shooting daggers at him. He takes the soiled tissue, and tosses it into the trash, “Touchy, today, are we, Agent Scully?”. 

And I gulp because I just realize that I have no idea how much of that article he read. I feel challenged all of a sudden; I could have a man if I wanted one. Mulder doesn’t know who touches me or, where or when, when we’re not at work. So I feel brazen and I purse my lips, “Mulder, did you read an interesting article this morning?”.


	2. "You Can Call Me A Fool, Only Wanna Be With You"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every molecule of me wants every molecule of him, and it’s getting increasingly harder to deny that fact as those ripe, cherry bitten lips of his are teasingly wrapped around the porcelain rim, twitching in anticipation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Just realized the I've been hoarding more chapters of this story for a hot minute.

Mulder smiles, and takes a swig of his coffee, eyeing me over the rim of the mug, with an eyebrow raised, “Hmmm, I did, and what about you Agent Scully?” He says my surname how my third grade boyfriend said Dana, with one too many consonants. 

The room is silent and all I can hear is the extra blood swimming in my inner ear, even my veins are screaming.

Every molecule of me wants every molecule of him, and it’s getting increasingly harder to deny that fact as those ripe, cherry bitten lips of his are teasingly wrapped around the porcelain rim, twitching in anticipation.

I have to close my eyes to see straight again, the blood pounding behind my them is making my vision blurry, and my heartrate feels unstable. As do my nylon wrapped calves, they’re quivering. 

I run my tongue over my lip trying to collect one single logical cell from my brain, but instead of scrubs, manilla folders, and pressed pant suits, like I expect to see, every conscious, practical thought has been replaced by a leather couch, tousled brown hair, narrow green eyes, pouty pink lips, and alabaster skin, made up of long legs and sculpted arms.

There’s flashes of diners, motels, long car rides, hand holding, and warm breath on my neck, which makes my skin shiver in reaction to the ghost puff of air on my jugular. 

Then I open my eyes and realize that it’s him. He’s really breathing on my neck, standing so close that I can feel the furnace of his chest and tree like limbs beaming through the layers of my protective, professional shell of polyester and spandex. 

As usual the sensations of him are raining down on me, soaking through every layer I’ve tried to place between us. 

There are several folders all filed neatly under a label I like to call "Denial 101"; synopsis; no we don’t have any feelings outside of friendship. They are categorized as follows: 1) Ignorance; if I pretend that I don’t notice the heaviness of his eyelids when he looks at me it must not be true, 2) Disapproval; if I roll my eyes and walk away when he makes my heart flutter it might go away, 3) Isolation; if I spend my free time alone and away from him, I’ll become less attached and accept my solitude, 4) High Necklines and Long Skirts; if I wear strictly conservative clothes that cover most of my skin he won’t find me attractive. 

And these all seem realistic, achievable, and practical, that is until I look into the eyes of my best friend. My closest friend in the whole world, and I can see straight into his compassionate heart and nurturing soul, which he is aiming directly at me. I barely remember what life was like before him, before I had someone on my side at all times. Even when we don’t agree, we work together, not against each other.

Arguments are frequent, but not detrimental to our relationship. Mulder is unlike any man I’ve ever known. His goal in life is not to undermine me, but to cherish and understand me. He lifts me up and guides me when I feel lost, and I always try to do the same for him.

My skin is hypersensitive to him, all of my senses are. All the billions of the cells stuck to my flesh are magnetized to his, and it sickens me as much as it excites me. I’ve never felt this kind of nausea, other than eating too much strawberry cake on my tenth birthday. 

He gives me a sugar rush, and when I’m not around him, I crash. The departure from him leaving work zaps my energy, and as I walk back into the office the next morning, my fix is met again, and I’m back on top of the world.

The tail of Mulder’s tie is draped across the sleeve of my grey suit jacket, and the rich, savory, spice of his skin, the scent that can set my nerves on fire in a millisecond, is filling my olfactories, which are in turn sending a surplus of hormones to dance with my red blood cells. 

I’ve been in love before, once, maybe twice, and I know what it feels like to be addicted to a person. But loving Mulder is different, different than any love I’ve ever experienced. 

Being loved by Mulder is like falling into him backwards without looking, and knowing, beyond a doubt, that he will catch me with waiting arms.

Loving Mulder is like singing a slow lovesong, it’s sweet, the melody is mesmerizing, and you can’t get it out of your head. At work, in the shower, while you’re reading a book, there it is, pouring its heart out to your little ears. He makes my toes curl, makes my elbows and knees weak. 

To my frustration, every time I see him, my heart jumps. I know that he’s coming, know that he’s just down the hall, or on the other side of the door, but no matter what, when he enters, and smiles at me like he does, I momentarily lose my cool. 

I’ve tried a million times to convince myself that it’s just because I’ve faced so much danger with him. That it’s the adrenaline that comes rushing back, like muscle memory, to help me keep in step with his longer, faster legs, but I know that that theory is complete bullshit.

“So, Scully,” he’s whispering against my neck, and I’m biting my lip to suppress a whimper, “is there anything that you want to talk about?” 

I give into a sigh instead, one that’s slightly desperate but not so much so that he’d know exactly what I’m thinking, “Yeah, are you ready to go to the crime scene again?,” and I say it all at a low, whispered volume, the only voice that I can currently manage. 

Mulder tilts his head to the side, and the tie slips down my arm, marking me, tickling my reactive skin. 

And that whimper comes out anyways, “Hmm, okay. Yeah let’s go," he agrees. Mulder looks back at me, studying the rise and fall of my chest, the stiffness of my shoulders, as he picks up the file from his desk, downs the rest of his coffee, and places the mug aside.

His eyes are still on me as he walks to the coat rack, holds mine out, and I shake my head because he’s so infuriating. 

He gives me a knowing smirk, that stupid 'Mulder smolder' that he’s famous for, well at least in my world. As I push my arms into the sleeves, I suddenly feel that hot breath on my neck again, ugh, that's it, I’m going to stab him with my scalpel today, the time has finally come. 

But then I smell him and every frustration is melted like the candles I keep in my bathroom where I take long, scorching bubble baths with glasses of overpriced red wine trying to forget that he exists. 

I can already feel my skin pruning from the steamy one I’ll have to take tonight, as I scrub the skin on my neck raw with mango-coconut cream in frustration. Then I’ll sink back against the porcelain until I’m chin deep in bubbles that smell like blueberries, and knuckle-deep in myself.

“Mmm, you smell good today, Scully. What is that, vanilla?” and he’s humming in my ear as he inhales the leftover scent of my vanilla cupcake body butter. 

“Yeah, vanilla cupcake…”, my voice shakes and I wonder what he would do I threw him against that filing cabinet and shoved my tongue down his throat, as I stroked his beautiful head of hair. It’s in the stage of overgrown where it falls across his eyes which makes him look young and carefree. 

And it makes me horny as hell. 

Then he steps back and brushes invisible lint off of my sleeve, “Oh, hey, I forgot. Gotcha a little something this morning,” and he reaches into the pocket of his black trench coat.

“I saw these at the counter when I was getting some sunflower seeds.” Mulder takes my hand and opens the fingers there so he can sit a couple of Ghiradelli chocolates in my palm. 

They’re the ones filled with caramel, and he knows how much I love those damn things. The tiny squares are wrapped in golden brown foil, and warmed from lying in the pocket against his leg. He closes my fingers around them, and I close my eyes to fight the affection I know that they must be exuding. 

And then he leans in, just leans into me, and kisses me on the cheek firmly. His lips are pressed into my skin, and I can’t help but to whimper again, as my eyes squeeze together tightly, overwhelmed by all of him. 

And then I’m in a daze as we’re walking to his car, the elevator ride and stride down the hall all feel like a movie, something I’m watching, not really a part of. When we slip into our seats, I can smell him again. In his car, his scent is everywhere.

I know, from a medical standpoint that I’m inhaling the scent of the dead skin cells that he’s shed, and there’s nothing romantic about that whatsoever, but gosh, he smells like heaven. My personal heaven. And I wish that he was hugging me so I could smell the scent right from the source, and kiss it, and taste it...

When he turns the key in the ignition, the stupid song that I pretend not to like, but secretly love, is playing, “Kiss me… dance silver moon sparkling, so kiss me…”, and I can’t help but look at him out of the corner of my eye. Mulder doesn’t pretend to like this song, he actually does, and he’s already humming as he checks his hair in the mirror, and pulls the gear shift into drive. 

So I sing it softly, under my breath, and he raises his eyebrows, while a smile warms over his face like sunshine, and I swear I can see his cheeks reddening under the shadows of the parking garage. I unwrap the first chocolate, and suck on the sweet outside before biting into the creamy innards, licking the strings of caramel that fall onto my chin. 

I hum my approval, and Mulder chuckles softly. He’s staring ahead, humming and smiling, as I sing through a mouthful of gooey chocolate, “kiss me beneath the milky twilight, lead me onto the moonlit floor…”. 

It’s out of tune, and my throat is covered in a sticky film, but I sing louder anyways, “lift your open hand, strike up the band, and make the fireflies dance, silvermoon's sparkling…” 

Then Mulder looks directly at me as he stops at a redlight, and he’s laughing joyfully, as I’m belting the song out, in my horrible rendition, “so kiss me…” Then as the light turns green it switches to, “Only Wanna Be With You,” and we’re singing it together, wholeheartedly. 

Mulder winks at me, as it plays, “you like to laugh at me when I look at other girls…”, it makes me blush, and suddenly I don’t care if he sees. 

“Well, there’s nothing I can do, I’ve been looking for a girl like you…” 

Then as the chorus blares through the speaker, we’re both crooning at the top of our lungs, “Well, there’s nothing I can do, I only wanna be with you, you can call me a fool, I only wanna be with you…” 

He pulls into the parking lot, and I’m drunk on the ecstasy of caramel chocolate and singing with him, his voice is entirely too sexy for his own good. 

As he slides into a parking place in the middle of the lot, the song is coming to an end, and Mulder is lying against the headrest with his eyes closed.

He’s softly singing, “I only wanna be with you…” in my direction. As the song fades away and the radio DJ start speaking, his eyes flutter open, and the blush is most definitely there. 

My head is sat against the headrest too, and I close my eyes to try and keep the words that are pushing on my heart and tongue inside my lips, but they’re shaking in anticipation. 

Mulder’s hand is suddenly resting on my neck and I lean to the opposite side so he can access it. He pushes the hair that’s fallen across my cheek back behind my ear. His fingers tickle the skin below my earlobe, and lift the gold chain up, straightening it out, fumbling with the cross in the middle. 

I know that there’s an obvious smile on my face, as he runs his knuckles in circles across the apple of my cheek and down my jawline. I sigh at the contact, contently, and keep my eyes closed as his sweet, soothing voice fills the gaps between the soft hum of sunlight and radio commercials, and it’s just above a whisper, “I guess I touch your back because I like to touch you. Is that bad?”. 

I don’t open my eyes, but I let my lips curve back up into a reassuring smile, as I reach for his hand, “That’s fine, Mulder. I really like when you touch me.” 

His fingers wrap mine up securely, “Okay,” he mutters dreamily. 

He’s rubbing his thumb across my wrist and I can’t resist asking the question that’s burning a hole through my consciousness, “Why do you like to touch me, Mulder?”, the question is a plea.

He laughs smally, and I know he’s already beating himself up inside, “Do you really want to know?”

Always with the suspense, always keeping me waiting for an answer, and my heart responds in the same way it always does, rapidly ticking on the edge of tachycardia.

I breathe out exasperatedly, “Yes, I do.” 

He squeezes my hand, and I keep my eyes closed thinking it may make this easier, if he can’t see the look in my eyes, but then he tilts my chin towards him with a soft, eager fingers. 

His fingers brush over my cheek again, and my eyes fall opened, “Scully, I’m in love with you.” 

My body buzzes in response, every cell vibrating, as I’m staring into his seafoam blue-green eyes, “Really?” I’m asking without realizing the words are slipping off off of my tongue. 

He furrows his brows and nods slowly, “Really, really, really in love with you, and I’m sorry. I know how inappropriate that is because you’re my partner, and I didn’t try to fall in love with you, I tried not to really-,” and I cut off his blabbering by cupping his face in my hands. 

“Mulder, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you either,” and a look of shock crosses his eye. 

Then he looks serene, more at ease than I’ve ever seen him before, “You mean that, Scully?”

I nod once again, laughing softly, “Of course I mean it. I would never just say that.”

I stroke his cheeks in my hands, searching his eyes, “And I'm so very tired of caring about the appropriateness of it. I think we deserve to be happy, after everything that we’ve been through together. Don’t you?” 

Mulder nods blissfully, and whispers onto my thumbs that are crossing his lips, “We do, and it kills me to pretend that I don’t want you. You’re brilliant, my only honest-to-God friend, and so damn gorgeous. I want you so badly it drives me crazy,” he chuckles self-consciously.

I slide my hands down to wrap them together around his neck, “Mmm, you have no idea, Mulder.” 

He reaches across the seat to pull me into a hug, as he rubs circles around my back, “I only wanna be with you,” he breathes into my ear.

**Author's Note:**

> HMU on Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter @mulderitsclaire


End file.
